THE nation desperately wanted to hear those words which Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani spoke after taking the vote of confidence.

For several years, the hearts and minds of the rulers and the ruled had not met the way they did on that promising day.

The new government is facing a great challenge in terms of meeting its reformist agenda. First, there is the system of grossly overlapping powers between the head of government and head of state due to encroachment of the latter on the former`s territory during the last six years. This dualism has the potential of hampering the process of reform in various areas of public policy.

Second, there is the challenge of keeping consensus within the ranks of the ruling coalition. This can turn out to be a formidable task given the presence of party bosses over and above the public office-holders at all levels.

Thirdly, the current economic crisis may be a great hindrance in the way of providing immediate relief to the public, and this may cost the ruling set-up in political terms. The first 100 days are crucial. People must believe that there was some improvement in their lot. No amount of propaganda can help if the situation on the ground does not change.

Will there be a time when we will have a provincial list of subjects, as was envisioned by the Constitution, to be incorporated within a stipulated time? Successive ruling dispensations, especially military governments, promised to protect and enhance provincial autonomy. They ended up further centralising the government. The nature and character of the current ruling coalition is such that the provinces will most likely have a fair amount of operational autonomy, given the representation of their ruling parties in the central government.

However, this autonomy needs to be enshrined in the Constitution itself so that the federation of Pakistan starts shedding centralism as its dominant character and moves to genuine pluralism. Additionally, provisions for autonomy must be transformed into an institutional arrangement that would oversee the share-out of financial resources and preparation of a set of policies. The longer it takes, the weaker will become the ties that bind the federation.

Apart from the formal speech of the prime minister, the nation heard with sheer amazement and a lot of awe that the president was part of the parliament. One is not sure whether it is possible for a person to be a member of parliament without belonging to either the National Assembly or the Senate. One can be elected to the former only through direct elections based on adult franchise, barring the elections for reserved seats for women or minorities that does not apply in this case.

The Senate is elected on the basis of PR-STV according to the party lists. One cannot be elected to the Senate unless one is nominated by a party. One is then enlisted as one out of 100 senators, none of whom is allowed to call himself the president of Pakistan. All this means that the office of the head of state should not be confused with the supreme lawmaking body.

Parliament can be unicameral or bicameral, but not tri-cameral. The president cannot become a one-person legislature. Lawmaking is a collective, and not an individual, function of public representatives. This argument is based on a constitutional approach to the business of the state.

In a political situation characterised by violation or suspension of the constitution, the principle of separation of powers becomes irrelevant. In other words, the dynamics of parliamentary democracy requires that the presidency is right-sized. In the present context, which is defined by an overlayer of presidentialism throughout the institutional framework of authority, it means that the presidency actually needs to be downsized comprehensively.

Apologists for the position of president being part of the parliament claim that he puts his signature on the bill passed by the two Houses which then becomes law. But then, presidential ordinances should make him part of the executive too. After all, the prime minister issues an ordinance in his name. Similarly, the fact that the president has the power to pardon somebody sentenced to death by the court should also make him part of the judiciary. All this would give the president a domineering position in the three wings of the state and make him a state unto himself in the tradition of medieval kings.

Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani has announced austerity measures for the Prime Minister`s House, while no announcement has been made for the presidential secretariat either by him or by the president himself. Over the years, the president`s office has accumulated enormous space, expanded its oversight functions beyond reasonable limits, increased its budget tremendously and operated an administrative structure parallel to the prime minister`s secretariat. It is time to curtail the huge expenditure of the presidential secretariat by downsizing it to 40 per cent of its budget, as in the case of the prime minister`s secretariat, if not to half of it.

The prime minister also proposed changes in the role and position of Pemra and NAB as part of his agenda. Pemra should be an independent body, free from the stranglehold of future gov

ernments. There is a need for this institution to provide greater representation to working journalists, electronic media operators as well as viewers as the ultimate consumers of the communications industry. Pemra would be far better as an independent body than as a subsidiary organisation affiliated with the information ministry. Let us borrow from countries with an established framework for the freedom of democracy.

Also, NAB should go. The nation has had enough of institutions which act as plaintiff and judge at the same time. The presence of two parallel judicial systems in Pakistan is certainly not in the interest of the nation. We must not continue to allow the use of the law and the machinery for adjudication and implementation of the law as an instrument of persecution, repression and revenge. Parallelism in the field of law has bred corruption and eroded respect for the justice system in Pakistan.

The last military government, like its predecessors, has created several legal and institutional dichotomies as well as legal and functional dualities, which need to be ironed out. No reformist agenda can succeed if the roles of state institutions and public offices are not neatly defined and understood by various stakeholders. n